The odyssey of the first man to cross the Atlantic in a rowing boat from North America to Europe

A former member of United Kingdom Marine Corps became the first person to pass the rowing and unassisted Atlantic Ocean crossing from New York to mainland Europe.

Dave “Dinger” Bell arrived in Newlyn, England at noon on Sunday. after spending 119 days alone at sea, enduring huge storms and being stung by a jellyfish. In addition, the 49-year-old man, originally from the small English town of Bere Regis, revealed he was afraid of open water.

“I will never do anything dangerous again”Bell said upon arriving in Newlyn Harbor, celebrating her adventure with a cup of coffee and a plate of chicken and pasta. On the shore, he was greeted by several people who greeted him, including his partner, brother and father.

The expedition was self-financed and He left New York on May 31 in a 24-foot (7.3-meter) oar-powered boat fitted with solar panels that recharged radio and satellite equipment to send daily updates of his equipment, monitors weather forecast and a water purifier. . The funds raised went to two charities, The SBS Association and Rock 2 Recovery UK.

His team said he was the first person to paddle alone and without support from North America to Europe, a 3,000-mile (approximately 4,800-kilometer) journey that is particularly dangerous due to the cold and harsh weather. strong currents. The tour operators said that Bell paddled an average of 12 hours per day and spend nights huddled inside the boat.

“It was an epic mix of emotions; I felt the whole gamut. The things that one feels in the sea are always enormously exaggerated “Bell said on social media after arriving ashore.

He added: “When the ocean was calm, the silence was the deepest I have ever known. Then there were other times when the weather worked against me, like on the Isle of Scilly, where a combination of strong currents and winds almost pushed me over the rocks. What scared me the most was the uncertainty: when I left New York, I was physically shaking and feeling bad. And when I was waiting for the first storm to arrive, I had no idea how my boat was going to do: you have to drop anchor, sit down and wait to get out on the other side ”.

The UK press explained that due to the changing weather conditions and incoming winds, it decided to stop at Newlyn, rather than the port town of Falmouth, as planned. His latest effort was to paddle nonstop for 40 hours after facing bad weather off the Isles of Scilly. “I didn’t want to end up in the Scillies, I wanted to go to the mainland. It was a race against time, ”he recalls.

The group that followed his feat noted that “it was a very difficult few days to wait for it to happen”, and that He was greeted by a lifeboat from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) charity that helped him travel the last three miles to meet his family.

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